'Motherlode' of Data Seized At Bin Laden Compound 718
itwbennett writes "The raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan Sunday also turned up an 'intelligence harvest' of computer-based data that was described by an anonymous government source as 'the motherlode of intelligence.' The data is being sifted through at a secret site in Afghanistan. An unnamed official was quoted by Politico as saying: 'Hundreds of people are going through it now. It's going to be great even if only 10 percent of it is actionable. They cleaned it out. Can you imagine what's on Osama bin Laden's hard drive?'"
Re:Umm (Score:5, Informative)
This is, this is just the kind of ultra important stuff where some is _actually_ going to use obscene amounts of processing power and analysis if required to get access to the data.
Encryption is a deterant.. 99% of the time the effort required to break said encryption is out of imagination for the value of the data... in this rare case, all the resources of the US military and possibly even other governments are available for use. They'd analyse every IC in the machine and put entire server farms to work on it to get the key.. unless he was very good with his computing practices... they'd get their data.
Re:Truecrypt (Score:3, Informative)
You mean, like not handling daylight savings time correctly, thus blowing themselves up an hour early? (Yup, this did happen).
Re:the name is Osama, not bin Laden (Score:5, Informative)
"Bin Laden" is "of the Laden family". The "bin" is akin to the Hebrew "ben", "son of" (e.g. "Yeshua ben Yosef", "Jesus son of Joseph".) The Arab equivalent to "of" (in this context) is "al", e.g. Saddam Hussein al Tikriti, Saddam Hussein from Tikrit.
As with other patronymics (e.g. the Scottish "Mac"), it's often used as a general family name, inherited for multiple generations. Osama bin Laden's father is Muhammad bin Laden. The original "Laden" is unknown, but goes back at least a century.
So it's perfectly reasonable to call him "bin Laden". It's his family name, at least a few generations back. Confusion arises only as with every other family name, in that there are a lot of bin Ladens out there, and you'd have to use his full name to be clear. But using just his first name would be equivalent to referring to the Chancellor of Germany as "Angela" or the Prime Minister of the UK as "Gordon": it's their personal name, and rarely used alone in public discourse.
You could use it that was as a deliberate insult of over familiarity. The New York Times took the unusual step of referring to him just as "bin Laden" rather than "Mr. bin Laden", which they reserve generally for the worst of the worst.
Re:Truecrypt (Score:4, Informative)
Didn't we learn anything from the whole "we tracked him by his cell phone" braggadocio fiasco?
That wasn't bragging. That was leaking, meant to do political damage to the Bush administration.
Re:Osama Missed Wikileaks Tweet Of Location? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Truecrypt (Score:4, Informative)
Either that, or it is a commentary on the value of a college degree.
Just sayin'.
People seem to think that suicide bombers are either idiots, complete nutjobs, or hate-filled extremists. I think the truth is more complicated than that.
I've heard stories about how at least some these guys are recruited. It often involves deceit, manipulation and heavy cohesion. They end up getting mixed up with the wrong people (and it can start seemingly innocently and naively). By the end, they end up being threatened or blackmailed, and put in a position where they feel like if they don't do it, they may bring danger or shame to family and loved ones.
I know it's no consolation to their victims, and by no means does it justify their actions, but some of these guys are victims too.